An 11-Step Program to Realizing Your Best Skiing Self

We know the feeling: your legs are heavy, your back sore, your mind a flurry. The last time you sent it, you ended up tomahawking for 200 feet, losing your goggles, and digging in the snow for your ski for two hours. But your path to a more holistic balance, a more austere, mindful, enlightened self is just 11 easy steps away. Unlock your inner vitality, and next time, you'll stick that landing as if in an effortless cloud of nirvana.

1. Everybody is talking about pocket bacon. But bacon is a temptation for the weak. In order to touch more of your inner beauty, go with pocket kale. Like eating a handful of dirt, kale is proven to help you hate yourself, thereby bringing you to the very brink of annihilation, at which point there is nowhere else to go but up.

2. Once you get off the lift, take off your skis and assume the chakrasana position (also known as the reverse downward dog, for the less enlightened). Hold for 10 minutes. This will center all of your chakras and help you understand the reason for your existence—which is to stick this landing.

3. As you ski toward the top of your line, chant. For example, shout "Salami!" repeatedly, while facing the sun, as loudly as you can. These incantations will harness all your inner meat-hucking spirits for the upcoming mission at hand.

4. Once you're at the top of your line, remove your skis and assume the lotus position. Clear your mind and meditate for 20 minutes by visualizing yourself as a prancing mountain goat.

5. Light incense and pray. Focus on forgiving yourself for all those past instances of not sticking the landing. After 10 minutes, blow out the candles and inhale as much of the smoke as you can. This will awaken your esophagus.

6. Put your skis back on. Yodel for 20 minutes.

7. Take your skis back off. Remove all your clothing until you are nude. Rub yourself with essential oils. Be sure to lather your scalp. We recommend a mixture of frankincense, rosemary, and eucalyptus, which has anecdotally been shown to cure every disease diagnosable and increase skiing ability by 23 percent.

8. Draw a picture of a rainbow, then crumple it up and swallow it.

9. Take a lock of your hair, an owl feather, a vial of wolf blood, a thimble of ayahuasca, and a clove of garlic and grind them to a paste with your boot heel. Apply this evenly to the bottoms of your skis. Known as a magic super-elixir, this wax is the secret ingredient to successfully becoming one with the snows.

10. Go behind a tree and rub one out. This will release any negative energy remaining in your soul.

11. Put your skis back on. Count backward from 173—the number of known moons in the universe—and drop in.